James Cook, Peter FitzSimons
James Cook, Peter FitzSimons
List: $33.99 | Sale: $23.80
Club: $16.99

James Cook
The story behind the man who mapped the world

Author: Peter FitzSimons

Narrator: Michael Carman

Unabridged: 21 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/29/2019


Synopsis

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated.

But who was the real James Cook?

This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the globe. His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and navigation. Leading a crew of men into uncharted territories, Cook would face the best and worst of humanity as he took himself and his crew to the edge of the known world - and beyond.

With his masterful storytelling talent, Peter FitzSimons brings the real James Cook to life. Focusing on his most iconic expedition, the voyage of the Endeavour, where Cook first set foot on Australian and New Zealand soil, FitzSimons contrasts Cook against another figure who looms large in Australasian history: Joseph Banks, the aristocratic botanist. As they left England, Banks, a rich, famous playboy, was everything that Cook was not. The voyage tested Cook's character and would help define his legacy.

Now, 240 years after James Cook's death, FitzSimons reveals what kind of man James was at heart. His strengths, his weaknesses, his passions and pursuits, failures and successes.

James Cook reveals the man behind the myth.

About Peter FitzSimons

Peter FitzSimons AM is Australia's bestselling non-fiction writer, and for the past 35 years has also been a journalist and columnist with the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD and the SUN-HERALD.He is the author of a number of highly successful books, including BREAKER MORANT, BURKE AND WILLS, MONASH'S MASTERPIECE, KOKODA, NED KELLY and GALLIPOLI, as well as biographies of such notable Australians as Sir Douglas Mawson, Nancy Wake and Nick Farr-Jones. His passion is to tell Australian stories, our own stories: of great men and women, of stirring events in our history. Peter grew up on a farm north of Sydney, went to boarding school in Sydney and attended Sydney University. An ex-Wallaby, he also lived for several years in rural France and Italy, playing rugby for regional clubs. He and his wife Lisa Wilkinson AM - journalist, magazine editor and television presenter - have three children; they live in Sydney.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ron on April 14, 2021

Fitzsimons is a prodigious publisher of books, mainly historical accounts of people or incidents. I have read several of them. He has a dedicated team of researchers who work tirelessly to bring facts and anecdotes to the surface to give the distinctive, personal identities to the people in his book......more

Goodreads review by Sean on January 31, 2020

At the beginning of this book the author inexplicably claims that Captain James Cook, the man, has never been adequately fleshed out in literature. It is an outlandish claim considering the hundreds of books and millions of words that have been written about this amazingly talented mariner. It becom......more

Goodreads review by Fred on February 29, 2020

Roaming a book store in Sydney Australia a few months ago I came across this newly released biography of James Cook by FitzSimons "Australia's bestselling non-fiction writer" and, given Cook's importance to Australian history, decided it would be an interesting read. And it was. First, it disabused......more

Goodreads review by David on May 03, 2024

I have just finished reading “James Cook - the story behind the man who mapped the world” by Peter Fitzsimons. It’s a great read and the first Peter Fitzsimons book I have read. It is also fitting a read as 2020 marks 250 years since James Cook’s first voyage on the Endeavour. Peter Fitzsimons has b......more

Goodreads review by Rod on March 09, 2020

I just was amazed how gripping this was. Told using verbatim accounts from Cook’s log and Banks’ diaries this gives a wonderful insight into the life of a great man......more


Quotes

Fitzsimons has a novelistic style... He is also able to convey the drama of the voyage